Prototype. A working redesign prototype for the Yolo-Solano Air Quality Management District, prepared by Stoa Works LLC as part of the June 4, 2026 Website Redesign & Development Services proposal. Not the live District website.
Davis now — …
Vacaville now — …
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Redesign notes · What changed · Why

What changed in the redesign and why.

Every decision below is paired with the specific finding from the live accessibility audit and the pre-audit appendix that motivated it. If you want to push back on any of these, that's exactly what we want — these are draft decisions, not finished ones, and your input changes them.

Information architecture

  • Today on ysaqmd.org

    Nine department-oriented top-level sections (About, Rules & Compliance, Permits, Plans & Data, Incentives, Transportation, Public Education) with a buried last-position "I WANT TO" dropdown of eight task-shortcuts.

    In the redesign

    Five audience-first landing pages (Smoke, Burn day status, Permits & complaints, Grants & incentives, Fresh Air For All / community + EJ) as the primary navigation, with the legacy department tree available as a secondary index for site search.

    Why

    The current "I WANT TO" dropdown is the strongest UX pattern on today's site — the District clearly knows users come to do something. The redesign promotes that pattern to the front door instead of burying it at the end of the menu. Department-oriented IA serves staff browsing; audience-oriented IA serves residents.

  • Today on ysaqmd.org

    Burn-day status, AQI, and current alerts buried in homepage carousel and various sub-pages.

    In the redesign

    Persistent header strip showing real-time Davis & Vacaville AQI plus Don't Light Tonight status on every page, with health advice paired with every AQI value.

    Why

    Glanceable real-time data is the District's highest-value, most-perishable surface. It should never be more than two taps away.

Accessibility

  • Today on ysaqmd.org

    44 axe-core violations across 9 audited pages, including 4 critical and 3 serious; region missing on every page; carousel hero images all have empty alt; theme HTML uses <div class="footer"> instead of <footer>.

    In the redesign

    0 axe-core violations across all 15 prototype pages at audit time. Semantic HTML5 landmarks (<main>, <header>, <footer>, <nav aria-label>), skip-to-content link as first focusable element, focus-visible outlines on every interactive element, keyboard-tested top to bottom.

    Why

    WCAG 2.1 Level AA (per FAQ&nbsp;#10) is the contract baseline. The DOJ Title II Final Rule (89&nbsp;FR&nbsp;31320, April&nbsp;2024) makes this enforceable. Building accessibility into the markup avoids the overlay liability that has driven repeated DOJ enforcement actions.

  • Today on ysaqmd.org

    GTranslate widget installed but the "Información en Español" page sends users to a list of English-labeled PDF titles.

    In the redesign

    Five Spanish-language sibling pages at the same URL depth as the English versions: /smoke-es, /burn-es, /permits-es, /fresh-air-for-all-es, plus a Spanish complaint flow. Language toggle in the header switches between paired pages.

    Why

    Cal/EJ alignment requires meaningful translation, not a Google widget. The current site's "Información en Español" is a tell that the translation work was never done. The five vital flows (smoke, burn, permits/complaints, fresh-air-for-all) cover the audience-specific information a Spanish-speaking resident is most likely to need.

  • Today on ysaqmd.org

    No UserWay / AccessiBe / EqualWeb overlay on the current site (the District has avoided the trap).

    In the redesign

    Continued — no overlay in the redesign either.

    Why

    Accessibility overlays have been the subject of multiple DOJ enforcement actions and class-action settlements. We meet requirements in the underlying markup, not with a third-party widget.

Search and findability

  • Today on ysaqmd.org

    Two nested <form id="searchform"> tags in every page's source — the inner form's action attribute points to http://www.unleashingleaders.com/ (an unrelated third-party domain). Browsers happen to use the outer form, but the artifact ships to every visitor.

    In the redesign

    Single semantically-correct search form. The third-party reference is gone.

    Why

    Any procurement or security review will flag this immediately. It's the kind of artifact that suggests a hand-edited theme that has not been audited.

  • Today on ysaqmd.org

    Core WordPress search; no PDF body indexing; no synonyms ("report smoke" returns 0 results); no faceted filtering; no deduplication ("permit" returns "Submit Annual Throughput Reports" twice).

    In the redesign

    Real client-side BM25 search with synonym expansion, faceted filtering by type/audience/language, deduplication, and result snippets with matched-term highlighting. The full search index covers 33 documents in the prototype (pages, forms, programs, rules, news). The same index pattern scales to 500+ documents on the server.

    Why

    Per FAQ&nbsp;#13 the District is not seeking AI features. We agree. The five gaps audit found on today's site are all closeable with proven techniques: synonyms, PDF body indexing, faceted filtering, deduplication, featured-answer cards.

Forms and applications

  • Today on ysaqmd.org

    50+ forms organized into seven categories as a static deep tree; mixed PDF / JotForm / Adobe Sign delivery with no format announcement on the link; no last-updated dates visible to the user.

    In the redesign

    Forms-finder with four facets: who you are, what you need to do, topic, format. Every row shows last-updated date and delivery format up front. Form 170, Form 01, Form 1005 are all searchable by form number or by topic keyword.

    Why

    A contractor who only files Adobe Sign forms can filter to those. A business operator filing a Form 1005 throughput report won't accidentally download a stale PDF. District staff get an at-a-glance view of which forms are due for refresh.

Air quality data

  • Today on ysaqmd.org

    Live AQI widget on homepage (good), but no historical chart, no PurpleAir community-sensor reference, no plain-English health advice table on the AQI page, no open-data endpoint for journalists.

    In the redesign

    Air-quality data hub with current AQI for Davis and Vacaville, 7-day sparkline chart for each zone, PurpleAir map link for the AB 617 sensor network, full health-advice table, and two open-data JSON endpoints (/api/airnow-ysaqmd and /api/airnow-history-ysaqmd) with no key, no rate limit, 10-minute and 1-hour server caches respectively.

    Why

    The District collects and surfaces real-time air-quality data; the redesign treats that as a first-class asset rather than a single homepage widget.

Technical platform

  • Today on ysaqmd.org

    WordPress 6.9 on WP Engine with a custom theme last meaningfully rebuilt around mid-2014 (per the literal navigation.js?ver=20140711 string). IE7/IE8 conditional comments, Modernizr, Foundation, Owl Carousel, bxSlider, prettyPhoto — a 2014-era stack. jquery-migrate loaded site-wide for backwards compatibility.

    In the redesign

    Continued on WordPress (FAQ #7: not optional) with a modern theme: semantic HTML5, no jQuery dependency for new components, fast static-asset pipeline, vanilla JS for the small interactive pieces. AllPaid, JotForm, and Granicus integrations preserved (FAQ #8).

    Why

    The District has working content-update processes on WordPress and there's no reason to migrate platforms. The work is in replacing the 2014 theme, not the CMS.

  • Today on ysaqmd.org

    Footer copyright reads "Copyright 2022" (three years stale).

    In the redesign

    Auto-updated copyright year via a single template helper.

    Why

    Small, but tells.

PDF library

  • Today on ysaqmd.org

    500+ legacy PDFs in /wp-content/uploads/ with no consistent accessibility metadata, mixed years (oldest sampled was 2008), and a long tail of forms / agendas / minutes / outreach materials.

    In the redesign

    Per FAQ #6: triage with District staff into three buckets. (1) Archive: no longer referenced, removed from the live tree but available via records request. (2) Convert to web page: a permit overview is better as accessible HTML than as a PDF. (3) Remediate as PDF: the form library and the legally-archival documents stay as PDFs but get proper tag trees, alt text, and form-field labels.

    Why

    Doing the same accessibility work on every PDF without triage burns hundreds of hours on documents that nobody opens. Triage first, remediate the keepers, retire the rest.

What's NOT in scope

The proposal scope is the public-facing redesign, not an internal rebuild. The following stay as-is unless the District flags them as in-scope during contract negotiation:

  • WordPress CMS itself. Per FAQ #7, the District is staying on WordPress. We're replacing the theme, not the CMS.
  • AllPaid, JotForm, Granicus, GTranslate. Per FAQ #8, these integrations stay in place. We replace the wrapper UX around them; the providers themselves are out of scope.
  • The internal Board / staff intranet (if the District elects the no-intranet pricing tier). The 2x2 pricing matrix in the proposal lays out both options.
  • Active legal documents and adopted rules. We rebuild the navigation around them; we don't edit them.
  • AI features. Per FAQ #13, the District is not seeking AI-driven UI for this redesign. The redesign agrees with that framing; AI is a Year 2 conversation if the District wants it then.

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